NAA 2013 Award Winner Profile: Business Excellence SME Project Of The Year Award
Sponsored by Bentley Motors and presented by Michael Straughan, Board Director for Manufacturing
How the award winner was assessed
The assessment process for Business Excellence award winners was based on the linkage of the project to the company objectives, project detail, achievements and the future opportunities. The project detail included looking at the method of implementation and satisfactory completion. The achievements were considered from two perspectives of ‘actual achieved to-date’ and ‘future potential’ and consisted of the return on investment, the number of jobs created and safeguarded, skills assists and any other benefits (social, environmental etc).
Winner – Sigmatex (UK) Ltd
Located in Runcorn, Sigmatex has developed and manufactured carbon fibre textiles for composite material applications since 1972.
Sigmatex’s proven capability converts millions of pounds of carbon fibre each year for major projects that require high levels of quality and reliability.
Sigmatex has grown significantly over the last five years, but the back office and support functions have not kept pace with the increase in production capacity, which resulted in below acceptable ‘On Time In Full’ (OTIF) at 83%, poor customer satisfaction and lost opportunities. A strategy was developed to overcome this and during the reviews it was identified that the majority of day-to-day business critical decisions that ultimately affect OTIF and customer satisfaction required sign-off by the departmental manager who was often quite removed from the issue. A team of middle managers with day-to-day accountability was created and the Business Excellence project supported a mentoring programme provided by Elements to ensure the effectiveness of this team and the decision-making process with the leadership team. The results are that OTIF for the last quarter was 98% which, combined with increased visibility, has increased customer satisfaction – plus an additional 22% of new customers are providing a revenue increase of 19%.
Chris McHugh, Technical Director at Sigmatex said “To receive this award was fantastic, but to also receive the Company of the Year Award is unbelievable, especially amongst such prestigious companies in the automotive sector. Sigmatex is a great believer in collaboration and the success that it brings with regard to innovation and business success. The awards are an acknowledgement of not just the hard work of our employees but the important work with our collaborators. Sigmatex prides itself on innovation and through our involvement with the NAA we have seen improvements in other key business areas. The receipt of the Company of the Year Award is acknowledgement throughout the company of all the improvements realised through this year. Everyone had a part to play in improving how we do business and providing improved service to our customers.”
